


From Which Nothing, Not Even Light

by gogollescent



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, Underage Drinking, wild speculation about the function of videogame aspects in nonvideogame life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-20
Updated: 2011-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-27 14:58:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/297075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gogollescent/pseuds/gogollescent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I know you're there," says Jane, "you must be, you said no one but you would ever use this number. Hello?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	From Which Nothing, Not Even Light

You are so drunk.

It's barely a sentence, not quite a refrain; you've said it too many times for it to mean anything of itself. "You are so drunk" is only a momentary condition, like _dizzy_ or _upright_ or _so sad you could die of it_. There is a part of you that realizes that, perhaps, for some people in the worlds, none of those are the stuff of moments, but what can you say: you are a flighty kind of gal. You breathe, and underneath your feet (or your knees) the universe shifts and curls, all that old bullshit whirling around some awful, open center. Momentarily, you believe that you could step sideways, and be lost.

Someone is calling you.

You think the phone is somewhere behind you. You lift your arm, and look at it. The clean drag of your sleeve against your skin is a relief. You turn your hand this way and that. The phone makes the noise again. You reach behind yourself, blindly, and your hand lands on the phone, yoink! First try, fucking miraculous. It always does.

You hit answer.

"Are you there?" Jane is saying, when you put it against your ear. "Hello? I don't know why I do this."

You don't know either, you want to say. You don't. You swear you're going to say something, in a minute. You'll say hello, maybe. There are no tricky consonants in hello. Or _Jane_ ; Jane goes soft sometimes in your mouth even when you're sober. You'll tell her how drunk you are, and she'll click her tongue against her palate in a specific way, a way you think maybe she's not even conscious of doing, this hard and self-contained little _-lock_ of sound.

 _\---lock, -lock, -lock--_

"Lalonde," says Jane.

You are going to say something. You are thinking, unimaginatively, about locks. Locks on fine red chains, and Jane's brown wrists, wrapped in filigree restraints. Jane's clear forehead, chains pushing up the blue-glossed fall of her black hair, the little darling lock that nestles blood-bright against the skin between her eyes. Any moment now you will locate your tongue.

"I know you're there," says Jane, "you must be, you said no one but you would ever use this number. Hello?"

She often calls you like this, late, when both light and your mother have long-since performed their last perfunctory duties and gotten the fuck out of your room. Or, no, not often, but it's the only time she does call you, once in a lonesome perigee, her voice never quite crossing into familiar but always, unfortunately, identifiable. She has a voice like something left in the oven for a long time. So _dry,_ is Jane. Like a good sherry, you think, and don't smile.

She's waiting now, and the silence is waterless and warm. You hear her groan. Sometimes in pesterconvo she types Groan! and it gets under your skin, like sand, but it's different when it's her voice, a little deep and matter-of-fact and so deceptively ordinary. If you could touch sounds, you think. If you could reach out and put your hand on them, like something lost and then recovered in the dark.

You think she calls you when she hasn't used her computer recently, or that _fucking_ tiara. You think that during the witching hour she glimpses the witch. Or, no. Who are you kidding? You wish.

You want her to be free. But even more than that, you want to free her.

So when she says, "I guess I'll try again some other night--"

\--you don't let her go. You don't let her sit in her bed, uneasy; you don't let her look at herself in the dark. 

You say, "I'm here." Which is true. True as a hole.


End file.
